


Adeste Fidelis

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:36:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...He knew deep down it was you all along."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adeste Fidelis

Jim Prideaux hated office parties. He imagined they were all the same: bored, weary, drunken people pretending to like one another, when in reality they'd only been thrown together through circumstance. At the Circus, it was worse than that. Even at Christmas, the masks were all firmly in place. No one wanted to put a foot wrong, to give anyone the slightest bit of rope they could later use for a noose. 

Jim saw through them. He watched George Smiley's wife—Ann, was it?-turn ever so slightly away when George leaned in to speak to her, and he watched George pretend not to notice. He watched Peter Guillam staring holes in the blouse of the secretary across from him, only to cast a covert glance at her boyfriend's backside when the man went to refill her drink. He watched Roy Bland foolishly slobbering over a girl young enough to be his daughter, and he watched Connie Sachs flirt rather desperately in Jerry Westerby's direction. Jim felt alone. Even Bill, who would normally suffer through things like this staunchly at Jim's side, seemed preoccupied, stopping by only now and then for a quick word or a smile from across the room.

Jim took another long drink of Control's punch, so stupidly strong everyone would be coming into work still hung over on Monday morning, and watched the clock. 

He stayed long enough to keep up appearances, and then some. The music was winding down and the crowd beginning to stagger out the door when Jim said his farewells, collected his coat and lit up a cigarette for the journey home. He was about to leave when he felt a familiar hand on his back.

"Want to go for a pint?"

"It's three o'clock." Well past closing time.

Bill gave his most dashing smile. "Yes, but apparently one of the secretaries has a brother's wife's friend's grandmother who runs a pub and isn't too picky about who she classes as 'private guests.'" 

"As tempting as that sounds, I think I'll go home to bed."

Bill's smile grew. He threw his arm around Jim's shoulders and squeezed. "Fancy some company?"

Jim lived in a dreary bedsit a short Tube journey and an even shorter cab ride from the Circus. It was utilitarian at best, dark and dingy with cracks in the walls and furniture that pre-dated the War, and not in a good way. Jim thought occasionally about sprucing it up, adding a new bed and maybe a few personal touches, but he spent so little time at home it seemed futile. And, of course, there were other advantages to the minimalist lifestyle. When Bill pushed him against the wall so hard the lamp rattled, for example, Jim was momentarily grateful there were no pictures to fall and shatter.

"Jesus Christ, darling." Bill murmured drunkenly, his hands on Jim's sides and his mouth on Jim's neck. He edged even closer, sticking his knee between Jim's legs. Just like that, Jim was hard despite the prodigious amounts of punch. "Fuck, Jim." Bill slid the coat from Jim's shoulders and dropped it to the ground. Jim opened his mouth and Bill kissed him, his tongue sliding between Jim's lips. Jim gasped, his excitement mounting at break-neck speed. It always did with Bill, even after all this time.

Bill relieved Jim of his shirt and took his hands away to work on his own clothes. Jim immediately felt the loss. He leaned in as Bill shed his coat and shirt and, as he did so, Jim caught a whiff of an faint, unusual scent: a woman's flowery perfume. He couldn't immediately identify it, but he knew he'd smelled it before, very recently. Jim pulled back, searching the reaches of his memory. Bill didn't seem to notice. He carried on undressing, muttering indistinct endearments and profanities, until Jim said: "Ann Smiley."

Bill glanced up. They hadn't paused to turn on the lamp, so Bill's face was illuminated only by the dim outside light filtering through the grimy net curtains. He smiled, his eyes bright. "Nothing to worry about, Jim. No call for jealousy." That wasn't the point. There was no expectation of fidelity between them, there never had been, but a colleague's wife was another matter altogether. Even in this business. Particularly in this business. "Trust me." 

Jim did. "Come on." He took Bill by the hand and pulled him the three steps to the narrow unmade bed. 

Jim didn't have secrets. He liked to think he was smarter than that. Everyone knew what he and Bill were to each other. Connie called them "the inseparables," and if no one knew exactly what went on between them after hours, Jim thought of that as privacy rather than secrecy. After all, even Percy Alleline didn't go on about what he and his wife got up to between the sheets, thank God. There was one thing, though, one tiny bit of information Jim would take to his grave: no one would ever know about the frisson of pure desire, the jolt of absolute unwavering lust, that went through Jim's body every time he heard Bill Haydon's trousers hit the floor. 

The bed creaked beneath their weight and a spring beside Jim's ear thwanged threateningly as Bill arranged himself above Jim. Jim ignored it. He leaned back, letting his eyes slide shut as Bill moved his lips along Jim's chest, dropping urgent kisses lower and lower until he had to hook his thumbs in the waistband of Jim's Y-fronts to continue his trajectory. He got rid of the underpants with his usual flair and put his hot, wet mouth on Jim's cock.

Jim groaned and opened his eyes. There was an odd brown stain on the ceiling above the bed. He and Bill had occasionally lain there and contemplated its origin, before Bill had declared there were some things even he would rather not know. It had begun to rain, and Jim could see the first drops streaking across the windowpane on the other side of the room. He put his hand in Bill's hair, although whether it was to keep him there or move him off, not even Jim knew. Finally, even though his body protested the decision vociferously, Jim nudged Bill upward and said, "Bill."

"Yes, darling?" Bill sat up. His hair was in disarray, his mouth red and swollen. Jim's heart hammered in his chest, as if planning an escape. 

"Stay long enough in this business, Jim, my boy," Control had once told him, in the guise of fatherly advice, “and you'll end up wondering if your own mother's a Soviet agent." Jim would have believed it of his mother, all too easily in fact. He could never believe it of Bill. He couldn't even think it. They were too close. They'd known each other too long. They loved each other too much. Jim could pick out a hood in a crowded room without even speaking the language. He would know if Bill was playing away. He would know. 

"Get up here and fuck me."

Bill grinned and moved up. He lay on top of Jim, pressing Jim's body into the mattress, surrounding him. Bill kissed him, long and deep, and said, "Merry Christmas, Jim." Jim held him tightly, one hand in Bill's hair and the other on his shoulder, and kissed him back.


End file.
